Elder Scrolls Online Summerset: 5 Major Changes

Not a lot was revealed last week about the Elder Scrolls Online’s newest expansion Summerset coming next month, but today we have tons of information to share with you! There have been many changes to the game in the past, and there are more to come in May. Jewelry Crafting, a new Trial, new Skill Line and that’s not all! Sit back, relax and do some Anniversary Quests while we fill you in on what you have in store!

ESO Summerset 5 Major Changes

While this isn’t a complete program of all of the changes coming with Update 18, we have compiled a list of the most important ones coming to the Elder Scrolls Online this May. These range from Jewelry Crafting – Cyrodiil and will shake things up a bit to say the least. Let’s start with the obvious one first, Jewelry Crafting.

1. Jewelry Crafting Added

Jewelry Crafting has finally come to Tamriel in this Update and players will be able to make Rings and Necklaces into Crafted Sets at last. Jewelry Crafting will have its own Skill Line (which you will gain immediately upon purchase of Summerset), and Jewelry Crafting materials will now be gatherable from new nodes scattered across Tamriel. All players can gather these jewels, but only players who own ESO Summerset will be able to actually use them to craft. Players who don’t own the expansion can still purchase or trade crafted Jewelry from other players, however, as these items will remain bind-on-equip.

Jewelry can be craftable in 9 different Traits which will need to be researched by the player (as is usual). Existing Sets will NOT DROP with new Traits, and Jewelry with these Traits will only be obtainable from very specific activities. These activities will include Summerset Quests, Trials and daily Cyrodiil Quests. Since you cannot find existing Sets with these Traits, you will need to use the Transmutation System from Clockwork City to Transmute them onto your existing gear if you want them. These Traits are as follows:

Bloodthirsty: Increase all damage you do to the target when it is below 25% health by 20%

Note: Players will not be able to deconstruct ANY jewelry obtained before ESO Summerset for crafting materials, so don’t hoard them thinking you’ll be able to!

2. Two-Handed Weapons Now Count as 2 Set Pieces

One of the more monumental changes in ESO’s history, this revision will allow players using Staves, Bows, Greatswords, etc, to have the coveted 5/5/2 Set combination. Previously only players using Dual Wield or Sword and Shield could utilize this setup, and this should be a big change to say the least. Of course we have concerns how this will play out in Cyrodiil, but this is an excellent change on the PvE front and will be enjoyed by many players. Healers in particular should rejoice, because they’ve often had to sacrifice their Monster Helm Set in order to help support their group.

I wonder if Maelstrom, Asylum and Master Weapons will get buffed because of this, because this really hurts the potential of these items. My guess is that they will be.

3. Psijic Order Skill Line Added

With the addition of ESO Summerset comes the new Psijic Order Skill Line. Players can rank up in this Skill Line by completing quests, not unlike the Dark Brotherhood, just with less assassinations. This Skill Line will have the traditional format of 1 Ultimate, 5 Active and 5 Passive Abilities, not unlike the Mages Guild or Fighters Guild Lines. This Skill Line is only available to players who own the expansion, as most of the quests will take place in Summerset itself. These Skills we know so far are as follows:

Undo (Ultimate) – Allows the player to return to exactly the state they were in 4 seconds prior, including position. This means you will physically move back to where you were and have exactly the resources you did then.

Time Stop – A ground targeted skill that puts an 8m radius slow in an area that stuns players that do not get outside of it within 1.5 seconds.

Meditate – Locks you into place in a channel that grants increased resource recovery while channeling.

4. Light and Heavy Attacks & Empower

Light and Heavy Attacks have been given a bit of a face lift with emphasis on improving their overall performance. Previously 1 point of Spell or Weapon Damage was worth the same as 40 points of Magicka or Stamina when it came to increasing the damage of these attacks, but now they have been mostly equalized. This means that Light and Heavy Attacks will perform more strongly on average because most players tend to stack resources, not raw damage. Make sure you get your weaving down, because it will pay off now more than ever!

Further emphasizing this focus is the change made to Empower. Empower currently increases the damage of your next direct attack by 20%, but this will be changed to 40% for you next Light Attack ONLY. Not direct damage or Heavy Attacks, just Light Attack.

5. Alliance War More Strategic

Although not the most massive changes in the history of Cyrodiil there are a few changes that are interesting and we wanted to make you aware of. First off, and this is a great one, players will no longer need wait for their Defensive Tick. If you defended your Keep, or were there when it happened and did anything at all, then you will get credit and Alliance Points and are free to ride out to get resources back or head to the next Keep.

The amount of your Defensive Tick will now also be multiplied by the level of your lowest ranking resource, further encouraging players to not only defend their Keep, but to maintain control of their resources during sieges and after them. This freedom will allow players to play more strategically without having to worry about getting little or no AP.

Lastly regarding Keeps themselves, a new Keep Upgrade has been put in place to add more defensive siege weapons. The higher the Keep levels are on wood, food and ore, the more siege weapons defenders can place. Additionally, monsters/guards in CP enabled campaigns will be a bit harder to kill and hit a bit harder.

Under-population and Underdog evaluation periods have been drastically reduced. This will result in scoring adjustments being applied more frequently depending on population and scoring within shorter time periods.

Catapults now have their area damage stick around in the world for a period of time after impact resulting in better area denial. Ballista have been rebalanced to do more damage vs. Siege weapons and damage vs. players has been reduced.

That’s all for now, but we will keep you updated with all information as soon as more is released, which should be fairly quick, and we will publish our full Breakdown article after we’ve gotten access to PTS. PTS is expected in the next couple of weeks so stay tuned!

6 comments on “Elder Scrolls Online Summerset: 5 Major Changes”

Very great changes, I actually like most of them. But what have me worried is the Psijic Order skill line. Previous Dark Brotherhood and Thieves guilds didn’t have a skill line that affect gameplay very much. they lean more towards doing the job for the guild, so they could be ignored if you are not intrested in the job or don’t have the DLC.

Now this line is more effective, like Mages and Fighters guild, but behind pay wall .. Which is not nice at all, the jewelry crafting being behind same pay wall is another problem, this kind of practice is more suitable for Free to Play games, but a paid game shouldn’t put you in disadvantage for not purchasing expansions. They should cut you from content you didn’t pay for, yes, but not strong gameplay features…

I totally agree with your last paragraph. I do believe we are not far from seeing F2P and I think we might hear about it in the next couple of months. My gut is telling me that we might hear it even sooner, but I have no official information to base that on. They are starting a player ambassador program, just like Lord of the Rings Online did when it went F2P. Some information is still NDAed, and I believe it could be this.

Well, if they are really going F2P, I hope they do better than Rift did.

Rift went from subscriptions to F2P, and allowed the player access to ALL their content. No area a free player couldn’t reach, which was great, but to compensate, they put features behind pay wall. And sold many things to speed progress, even a Max level scroll, and two extra accesories slots .. and many loot boxes on top of it.

It is still playable, you can enjoy Rift without paying anything at all, but that’s due to very very rich customizations and subclasses you get for free, and the ability to switch between them on the fly. But ESO id different, they don’t give us that much freedom, so I really hope they take different approach.

I don’t mind them selling things that speed up things like research, mount speed/carrying/stamina, motifs, xp scrolls etc. These are the things a F2P game needs to sell in order to keep the game alive so players like me and you, who won’t buy them, can play for free. As it stands now, if ESO went F2P as is, you’d have access to One Tamriel for nothing, which is a HUGE amount of content for free.

Right, if done well the F2P model is great. ESO and Warframe are probably the best, as you get access to everything in the game just by buying the game (or downloading it, in Warframe’s case). Everything else can be obtained by trading with other players, investing time in the game to get materials, and crafting. Warframe has a few premium currency sinks, like inventory slots and cosmetics, as you can trade the premium currency between players. ESO doesn’t need those sinks, as there’s housing and other stuff to get.